Oftentimes the most relied on sources of information concerning the reputation of a person, organization or service are the recommendations of friends, family, neighbors and/or colleagues. For example if one needed to find a local dentist, he/she might ask friends and neighbors in the area who their dentist is or if they had any suggestions. Referrals provided via these trusted sources would tend to be highly regarded, though not necessarily because they are correct, but rather because they come from people the inquirer knows and trusts. Likewise, when a vice president of a company is seeking a new marketing manager, she may ask colleagues, employees and friends if they can recommend someone who has the right qualifications for the position. Again any recommendations from these sources may tend to be more highly regarded than, say referrals from professional recruiters, because the vice president knows and trusts the sources of the referrals. Indeed, the inquirer could gage her level of trust depending on how well she knows the person making the referral. In some ways, the subject of the referral becomes imbibed with the same attributes as the person making the referral, at least in the mind of the inquirer. Of course, the referral may not come from the inquirer's immediate contacts but instead from contacts of those contacts. For example if the vice president's immediate contacts do not know anyone with the qualifications she is looking for, these contacts could then consult their trusted contacts for someone who may be a fit. This process could continue for several iterations involving multiple degrees of connections until ultimately a candidate is found for the marketing manager position. This network of friends and other known and trusted individuals, and their friends and contacts, is a social network.
More generally, social networks may be regarded as networks of people connected by trust, shared values, and/or a mutual need for cooperation. Social communities, cooperative business relationships, and professional associations are all examples of social networks. Social networking systems create social networks to find business partners, clients and people with shared interests and values. Such systems are also used to share knowledge, build and strengthen communities, build teams, and map and analyze complex organizational networks.
This concept has expanded to online communities where people share and use these contacts to find new friends, romantic interests, and business partners or employees. This provides an easier and more organized way to manage and develop one's social network. A person may receive an invitation from a friend or colleague to join an online community or decide to join independently. To join a user must set up an account which may include an account name and password and the user may be required to set up a personal profile which lists activities and interests and/or resume details such as past positions and experiences. The user can then add contacts to his or her network, those contacts can add their contacts and so forth and so an entire online social network is created. A user can then use his/her network to search for a new friend, romantic interest, business partner or employee. Most online social networks show the links for each potential target listed in a search so the user knows how far removed the target is. The target may be a first-degree contact meaning he/she is within the user's immediate friends and contacts, or he/she may be a second, third or further removed contact.
In addition, many of these online communities have some sort of reputation system where a user can either write a testimonial about a person in their network or rate that individual based on several characteristics. The purpose of a reputation system is to build confidence and trust in and between users in the online community. Reputation systems store reference information plus evaluations and endorsements in electronic databases to be associated with users' profiles and resumes. Searchers use these stored references and endorsements to enhance their ability to find others who not only appear to match their requirements, but who have also received positive endorsements.
Many existing reputation systems in online communities suffer from the drawback that most people do not truly know one another, other than in the context of the online community. That is, the users have limited prior experience with and personal knowledge of other people in their community. For example, many online retail stores have reputation systems which permit customers to comment on a particular product they have purchased and/or rate the service or product based on some predetermined criteria. This data is then aggregated and a score is displayed (sometimes along with individuals' comments) next to a particular product. The data so collected, aggregated and ultimately displayed is based on transactions that occur only in the online community environment and there is no personal connection or network between the customers beyond interest in the same product or service. Thus to develop a reputation system, such online communities depend on ratings of content, immediate online behavior and results of online transactions, which are then aggregated into a statistically objective collective reputation.
Online social networking systems create additional, unique opportunities for a reputation system that is much more robust and accessible. Existing systems allow members of the community to write a testimonial or endorsement of certain people in their network of contacts. For example a user, Jane, may know that one of her contacts, Bob, is looking for a job. Since Jane has previously worked with Bob and knows him to be an excellent market research analyst as well as a hard worker and easy to get along with, she might write an endorsement about Bob that would be included as part of Bob's online profile. When a potential employer is searching the online network and comes across Bob's online profile the employer can immediately see the reference in Bob's profile.
The problem for the potential employer then becomes how to ensure such an endorsement is valid, complete, and accurate. More generally, uses of online social networks need mechanisms to build confidence in their system. The online community usually provides the “degree of connection” so the searcher can see how far removed the target and the endorser(s) are from her primary contacts. Typically, however, as these associations get more and more remote, the searcher's confidence level wanes. The endorsement may be written by someone unknown to the searcher such as a friend, of a friend, of a friend. How does the searcher know that this “friend” writing the endorsement is a trusted source and so the target is indeed a qualified individual? With many online communities now attracting hundreds of thousands of users, a typical search may return large lists of potential targets that are quite far removed from the searcher's most trusted and reliable contacts and so this problem is rapidly becoming one of significant importance.
It is also true that people have a tendency to write only positive endorsements, so it is not clear if one is getting accurate and complete information from the references. Some social networks provide a verification report that is created through an automated process of reference checking by sending emails to sources to verify certain information on a particular person. However this may only be helpful for verifiable information such as resume details like employers, clients, schools, test scores, degrees, certifications, published reviews and articles, and organization membership. The question of how to get more information about a person (such as the person's work ethic and style) when trying to fill a particular employment position, how to contact references who can speak about a person, or how to obtain more information on references provided by the person is left unresolved.
It is important to create a community where users have confidence that the reputation system provides accurate and valid information. Presently available reputation systems for online social network communities are inadequate to provide the appropriate level of confidence and validity and to allow further communication with an endorser of a person. The present invention addresses these inadequacies.